I Think Sew

Number 100!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:54:00 +0000

This marks my 100th blog post... and it's my birthday! Definitely time to celebrate, although I'm not quite ready. This week we had some hard heavy rain and our basement flooded. Since Wednesday we've been cleaning and drying and moving stuff and cleaning some more. Last night was the first time in days I actually found some time to sew, and in all actuality, that's all I really wanna do for my b-day!

This is where I'm at with the dragon:

I picked up all the browns and will be re-laying them out in a better pattern next. It's definitely a labor of love, or at least...something to obsess over. Last night I was up late playing in my sewing room ~ there's no clock in there, and I listen to books on CD so I can get really lost in time. No surprise I didn't get to bed till about 5am. But, I got a lot done! The anniversary quilt top is just about finished.

Oh yeah... HAPPY NEW YEAR - year of the Dragon starts today! With the new year comes high hopes for progressive change and continued happiness and contentment with many friends new and old. Thanks for sharing in it with me!

Another Great Meeting!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:48:00 +0000

Just got home from the first PMQG meeting of the new year ~ and I felt the need to write about it! We are so lucky to be a part of such a creative group of people, everyone seems so nice and helpful, with a wealth of knowledge to share. I always feel so warm and fuzzy afterwards, not to mention totally motivated and a little overwhelmed with all these new ideas! I'm love my quilty friends :)

I really wanted to finish the quilt top I'm working on to show tonight... but it just didn't happen. So I thought I'd share what I'm working on... it's an anniversary quilt for my inlaws. Mom picked out the fabric... and it's not a color palate I would have chosen, so it's a little hard to work with. What do you think?

Here are some photos of the quilt pieces... and you can see my little green sewing room too:

I guess we'll see how it all turns out here in a few days... I'll post when I finish the top. Speaking of posts... my next will be my 100th post, so maybe I'll post some sort of give-away to celebrate! Check back soon...

Slow Going...

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:31:00 +0000

Slow going is the way I would describe my sewing ventures lately. With the new year comes new plans for our business... so I've been spending more time on that end of my world. However, I am working on a schedule to be able to spend a little more time actually stitching ~ even when business picks up... but we'll see how that goes ;)

I did get the first stage of the dragon quilt laid out:

I'm making a few color changes... for the "beard" I'm changing it up to aqua, and then I'm starting on the next stage. That will be to pick up all the browns and rework them by pattern into a wood grain look as the background... then I can rework the other colors using the shade values for depth.

After all that, I can pick a border fabric... and then start sewing them together.
It's not the quickest process... but I am enjoying it!

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:19:00 +0000

Happy New Year everybody! I am personally very excited for 2012... it's the year of the Dragon, and the galactic alignment of the stars. I'm sure we will be seeing all sorts of craziness this year. My hope is for change, growing towards a people and planet working together for survival and sanity instead of money and power. This may be too utopian for most ~ but I think that's the type of living we are all searching for.

In my search for sanity, I sew to keep me from doing negatively-addictive things with my hands. For instance, next month marks 15 years of no cigarettes. At one point I chain smoked 2+ packs a day... now I sew 40-50 hexies and I'm all good!

Speaking of which... here's a pic of the hexie project I'm currently working on with a dime to see size. *thanks for the idea, Rachel!*

And here is where I'm at with the layout so far... it's going to be a Wood Dragon ~ which also happens to be my husbands Chinese Astrological sign. So if I can get this done by June, he'll have an awesome birthday gift!

My books on CD just arrived at the library. I'm listening to the Game of Thrones book series, and just started book 3 with book 4 already in. That means I have to listen to both books in 3 weeks ~ which will hopefully also mean I'll get a lot of sewing done!

Laying It All Out

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:14:00 +0000

So, for those of you following my Dragon Quilt progress... I have 3,652 hexies made! I'm close to having them all completed, so I started laying it all out last night:

It'll take a few days to get them laid out in their color families... then I'll go in and reposition individual hexies to create some depth and movement.

That's all for now folks... I'll check in soon with more progress pics :)

PMQG Gift Swap

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:51:00 +0000

On Thursday night I met up with a whole bunch of awesome ladies for the last meeting of the year for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. It was pretty fantastic ~ I've really been enjoying my time with so many awesomely creative people this year!

We all swapped fabric 2 months ago to make a holiday gift with it for our swap partner. I received fabric from Pétra, and I loved her fabric choices and totally admire her creative aesthetic... so that made me a little nervous. I ended up making some pillow covers for her ~ and I was thrilled (and a little relieved) when she said she liked them:

I brought some bright fun fabrics and this is what Kim made me ~ and it's perfect! I was thinking of making myself a needle holder (and kept putting it off) and the pin cushion container is super sweet! Isn't this great:

Quilt Start: Anniversary Quilt

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:59:00 +0000

At the last PMQG All-Day Sew, I started a brand new quilt. It is for my In-Laws 50th wedding anniversary next April... and I'm pretty excited about it!

It is a first in creating a full pattern before I start sewing. I took my Mother-In-Law fabric shopping the last time she came to visit, so she was able to pick the fabrics she liked most. This is good because I really want them both to love this quilt! She picked a couple florals, a stripe, and a solid and requested some shiny gold to signify 50 years. Later I added a solid muted aqua color (can't remember the color name) that will help in making this design look a little modern.

I thought I'd share my progress on this quilt as I go since I'm just getting started. Here is my design and notes etc.... the highlighted yellow denotes the blocks I have finished. Next post I'll have some photos of the fabric.

The quilt will be 110"x95" so it will fit a king sized bed with full hang on 3 sides. It will be the biggest quilt I've ever made. Which already has me questioning the quilting. I need to talk to Nancy!

I'm super excited about our PMQG meeting tonight! It's going to be a potluck and gift swap... and we get to see more amazing quilts!!

Oh ~ for those of you keeping track, I'm at 2975 hexies made for The Dragon Quilt... less than 1000 to go and I can start laying them out!! Special thanks to Ale, Rachel, Brittney, and Michelle for your brown scraps!

Need More Browns

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Dragon quilt update: 2,703 pieces made as of today. I would just keep sewing, except I'm out of papers, and brown fabrics. Thanks to Miss Rachel for giving me a bunch of awesome brown scraps ~ I was able to get another 300 done... but I still have 850 browns to go. Here is a quick shot of the colors I already have:

So if anyone has any scrap fabric with blenders between tan and gold or a more butterscotchy-type brown that are at least 1.5" square... and would be willing to share... I would be more than grateful! It's a hard color to find in monochromatic patterns ~ but I'll be looking this Saturday when we have our All-Day Sew at Fabric Depot.

Since I've had a little extra time in the sewing dept. while waiting for more paper pieces to arrive, I was able to work on the Holiday Gift Swap for our PMQG. I'm very happy with my results with a new technique ~ and I can't wait to share!! Here is a sneak peek:

Giving Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:58:00 +0000

Last week was Thanksgiving, and boy oh boy did we do it up: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce... the whole nine yards. It was a great weekend! Even though I haven't had time to work on the dragon quilt, I had an opportunity to work on something for my neighbor:

Anniversary Quilt

She found this AMAZING hand-stitched grandmother's garden quilt top in a chest in her house when she moved in 35 years ago. The chest was full of Korean War memorabilia, so we're guessing this was probably made in the 50's using 40's fabrics??? I picked a few of my favorite prints and posted pics below ~ does anyone have an idea of when these fabrics are from? Which is your favorite?

Anyway... I brought it to Nancy Stovall at Just Quilting to quilt it for her... as you can see it turned out gorgeous!! It is a 25 year anniversary gift to her husband, and she knows they will be using it a lot... so we quilted it with a tighter pattern so it can be lightly washed. It is just so beautiful ~ and I am giving thanks that I got to see something so old in such great condition! I added a binding and gave it back to my neighbor ~ as soon as her hubby sees it, we'll be photographing it on her bed and I'll post pics.

The Count Is In

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:04:00 +0000

Last night I counted all the half-inch hexies I have finished for my Dragon quilt... 2,232 pieces done!! Woo Hoo ~ I'm over half-way there! My new goal is to have all the pieces finished by the end of the year.

After all the pieces are finished, I'll lay them all out and play with it until I get what I'm looking for, then I can start sewing them all together. It's a process, but I'm loving it. These are the bins for the cream (dragon body) and the brown (background) colors. I have all the cream I need, but I'm only halfway finished with the browns.

Outside of quilting, I've been getting ready for Thanksgiving. I cook every year (I love cooking almost as much as sewing) and this year is no exception. Luckily for me, I don't put much stress into it. This year will be a little different because I will not be cooking any grains or refined sugars... but I'll manage just fine. It's just nice having a little down time with family!

Time To Get Better!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:13:00 +0000

I'm starting this post off with a special Happy Birthday to our lovely Rita Dog who just turned 14! She is not a camera-friendly dog, so I'm happy to have a non-blurry picture of her. We found this dog at large when she was 6 and she was neglected and totally schitzo... now with some love and indoor living she's turned into an amazing dog full of love (at least for those she knows well).

For me, today marks the first day of my antibiotic treatment and new diet plan. I got a positive test result for SIBO so I'm biting the bullet and jumping into treatment even though this is the beginning of the holiday season (full of food). The antibiotics will kill the bad bacteria, and the diet will help heal my intestinal lining... hopefully in 6 months I'll be a different person health-wise!

The antibiotics are powerful... my first dose made me a little dizzy ~ but I guess they should be, I spent enough on them!! Oh well, it's way better than needing a surgery or relegating myself to a lifetime of aches and pains. The diet is very simple: meat broths, boiled veggies and meat, fermented veggies, and ginger tea. That's it until some symptoms subside, then I can move onto slowly adding foods to the diet until I'm back to normal.

I'm really happy about it actually. I just hope I can do well with my self-control and find time to make all the foods from scratch. That means a little less time sewing... but it's for a good cause ;)

Dragon Quilt Check In

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Today marks 3 weeks since I've started sewing hexies for the Dragon Quilt... and this is what I have so far:

It may not look like much... but there are 1,363 hexies made already ~ that averages 64 a day!! For me, this is a fantastic pace... much faster than my squid quilt. I hope I can keep it up!

These are all the basic colors of the quilt: creamy offwhites for the body, bright greens for the belly, reds and oranges for the top scales, and golden browns for the background. Looking at this photo, I want to add more oranges to the reds and more blues to the bright greens to round out colors. The most hexies are the golden browns. I have 539 done, and still need 1,522 more.

I've gone through all my scraps ~ so now I'm on the hunt for monochromatic patterns in these colors. Fabric depot had some fat quarters that will work well ~ I'm interested to see how many hexies I can make from a whole fat quarter... although I prefer using smaller pieces so there isn't too much of any one pattern.

Okay... I'm off to sew a few more!

Ona's Quilt

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:52:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I finished a baby quilt for a new little girl named Ona, and I thought I'd share some more pics. I'm really happy with my free-motion-quilting! This marks the 4th quilt that I've done FMQ and my stitch lengths are becoming a little more even and I'm doing better with keeping stitch lines smoother. I'm loving the echo effect right now ~ it adds some nice organic movement to the straight lines of the patchwork.

I work on a regular singer sewing machine... so the hardest part for me is munching the whole quilt up in the throat while I work. That's why this little baby quilt was so fun... it was small enough that I could easily maneuver it in the machine. Plus it was for some pretty great friends of ours who had their first baby ~ so it was totally fun to make!

One Week In

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:35:00 +0000

Woo hoo! Here is my progress so far on my new Dragon Quilt! The plan is for 3,942 1/2" hexagons to complete the image. I completed 432 in a week ~ so if all goes well, in 10 weeks I'll have all the pieces made. Then I'll put them all together and try to have this finished by the end of 2012 since it's the year of the dragon!

The dragon will be a wood-dragon, so all the colors will be earthy, the background will be browns and golds ~ here are some brown hexies. Aren't they just so cute! I'm TOTALLY addicted.

Tonight is the PMQG meeting and I'm pretty excited about it, I have 2 quilts to show!! One is the Villa Villa Kula quilt I posted earlier... and the other is a baby blanket for my friends new daughter, Ona. I'm really super happy with my free-motion-quilting on that project. Here is an up close shot, I'll post more as soon as I have good photos of the finished quilt.

See all you locals at the meeting tonight ~ YAY!

Dragon Quilt Start!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 01:53:00 +0000

I've had the idea for a dragon hexie quilt even before I finished my squid quilt. After a long summer, I finally have the design finished! What do you think? It's just a rough idea of what actual patterned fabric will look like, and I may change color families as I go ~ but it's a good start.

This quilt will need at least 4,000 1/2" hexagon pieces which is a much bigger project than the squid at 1,432 hexies. Am I crazy???? Maybe... but I really miss having something to work on wherever I go ~ and honestly, finishing a hand-pieced quilt is pretty satisfying! I ordered some of the pre-cut paper pieces today ~ that means I will start sewing in about a week.

The dragon image was chosen because 2012 is the year of the dragon ~ my hope is to be able to finish by the end of 2012.... we'll see how that goes ~ wish me luck and quick callouses!

Find Your Own Voice Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 02:00:00 +0000

I just finished my quilt for the MQG challenge ~ YAY!!!! My fingers are sore because I whipped out the binding this afternoon. Usually I like to take my time with those, but I wanted to be done on time.

So here is what I entered... plus a few more pictures :)

The challenge to "find your own voice" was difficult to start. I began by making all sorts of block patterns... but stopped realizing that the first thing about me is that I'm not so rigid. Then I started looking through my stash and found everything was too new, too clean or too crisp to truly represent me. I was stumped for a while... but eventually I decided to just start sewing.

I cut into an old skirt I was saving (you know... for the fabric) to test a sewn in circle technique I've recently learned from friends at the PMQG. I liked it so much I decided to use it in the quilt. Then I started going through more old clothes that I've been saving just for the fabric... and the idea hit me to use them in the quilt. I divided them by the years I wore them to make into 8 blocks. Each group of fabric represents a span of 5 years and the clothing I wore at that time. Most fabrics are repurposed clothing, and the rest are newer scraps that emulate the age. I'm not quite 45 yet, so the ninth block is mostly white... awaiting it's own color.

I had no plan when I made the first block ~ I just put fabric together till I liked it, then I tried to recreate the block. I chose to use a solid bone color as my "background" to highlight all the different fabrics. My first re-creation was a mess because I didn't write it all down the first time... but I plugged through and figured it out and the rest of the blocks went more smoothly. Once I had all my blocks put together I pretty much knew it was definitely going to be MY quilt ~ who else would like something so random? My first thought went to my favorite childhood character, Pippi Longstocking, who lived in a house in which this quilt would fit right in... Villa Villa Kula. So that is the name of my new quilt!

With Pippi in mind, I free-motion quilted my quilt. It's a bit random like the quilt top... and definitely not perfect (just like me). I had fun using different patterns in the quilting. Some stitches radiate from the circle centers to denote growth, some are blocky to denote a good foundation, and some just arrows directing the flow through the years. I added daisies around the edges for fun... and now I love it.

Last, but not least... I added some text into each block:

born a Earth Monkey
wanted to be Holly Hobby
sweet sixteen
street schooled
punk rock mama
coastal caravan gypsy
name change for love
living life creatively
forward to the future

This last bit really made it sing to me, and that's the voice I want to hear.

Villa Villa Kula Quilt
Finished September 29, 2011
63"x84"

GAPS

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 17:59:00 +0000

Today is Sunday... and I plan on finishing the quilting on my "Villa Villa Kula Quilt" today! Then it's off to the binding ~ YAY! I'm so close! I can't wait to share, but I'm waiting for the MQG contest to be over first.

In the meantime, I received some exciting news from my Naturopathic Doctor. She did some research for me (I've been having issues for a long time) and found some work by a colleague: Dr. Allison Siebecker who has been studying the small intestines and something called SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)... and my doctor thinks this could be the cause of my symptoms. I'm taking the test for it next week ~ and if that is the case... I can get better!!!!

I've been resigning myself to the idea I have fibromyalgia, and have been a bit down about it. But it may not be that! It may just be a bacteria deep in my intestines (gross, I know ~ sorry). And if that's the case, a dose of special antibiotics and a very strict diet WILL make me better. The diet prescribed is the GAPS diet.

GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome. It seems when you have chronic digestive issues, your body cannot take up all the nutrients it should, so our brains do not get fed and we start having mental issues. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride has been researching this since 2004 and I just got her book, and I'm blown away at all the things being malnourished can affect. I also got a GAPS cookbook called Internal Bliss ~ and I already LOVE it! I don't have to "adapt" anything... everything is Gail-Friendly, it's awesome.

So I just wanted to share a bit of good news (hopefully) and now I'll get back to my sewing!

Quilting... finally!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:33:00 +0000

I am working on a quilt for the "Find Your Voice" MQG quilt challenge. I finished the top and back... and it's all basted and ready to quilt! FINALLY! I got some stitches in last night (teaser pic).

This quilt has been a blast to work on. Since it's "my voice" I can be as crazy and unperfect with my sewing as I want to be ~ and that is making it really fun! I know it's going to be my quilt when I'm done... I don't know that anyone else would find it as appealing as me. Just hope to be able to get it all done and photographed by next week!

I'm so excited to get to more quilting later today... however, I'm a little stuck as to HOW I'm actually going to quilt the rest of it. Oh well, doesn't really matter ~ there is no pressure... and boy, does that feel good!

Jay McCarroll quilt block

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:42:00 +0000

Jay McCarroll quilt block, originally uploaded by RamonaX.

I was finally feeling good enough to sew, so I was able to work on my Jay McCarroll block! I wanted to come up with something fresh and new... for me this was it. I've been wanting to try a technique for sewing triangles for a while now, and it worked great. Basically you just sew two square pieces of fabric together around all 4 edges, then cut the diagonals and voila!

Looking forward to the PMQG tomorrow night to see friends and have a little social time. I think I'm up for it ~ the cooler weather is helping to make me feel better and I'm so happy about that.

Hard To Focus

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:13:00 +0000

Lately it's been a little hard for me to focus on things, especially design and other decision-making skills, and it's a bit disconcerting. My work is slow and my math needs to be worked out on paper, so I can follow through on plans correctly... but it's not efficient at all and it's frustrating. I'm fairly sure I'm suffering from fibrofog the way my whole body has been screaming at me lately.

Needless to say this type of brain dysfunction is making it very difficult to do simple math for my quilty needs. The quilt I'm working on now just needs some sashing... and I spent all day yesterday trying to see if my figures were correct, before cutting into fabric. Now I'm just hoping I did it right ~ or I'll have to get more fabric! (I guess that wouldn't be all bad!) I'm just feeling a bit on the stupid end of things lately... but it'll pass, it always does.

However... I did make some good progress on my "My Voice" quilt over the weekend, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. I don't want to share just yet... but above is a psychedelic take on some work I did this weekend: Enjoy!

A "Me" Quilt

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:20:00 +0000

So I've been thinking and thinking about the Modern Quilt Guild Challenge a lot lately... it's hard when the criteria is to make something that is uniquely "your voice". I spent some time and came up with quite a few new block patterns that I'm excited to try.... but I'm too messy to use them in my "my voice" quilt. I think I have to piece as I sew and just see what happens!

I don't know if any of this will make it to my quilt... but here is what I'm looking at fabric-wise, I want to use fabrics from some of my old clothing, so it will be an upcycled piece:

I was also playing with sewn-in circles... and thanks to Rachel, I think I have circle sewing in the bag... what do you think?

I'm pretty happy with the results! Now... I just have to motivate myself to work on it. It's been hard due to the fact it is beautiful in Portland right now... and I'm having a hard time sitting inside.

Contemplation

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:55:00 +0000

YAY! My stargazers bloomed!!! It's the first time it's had more than one flower and I'm stoked!

So... did you hear? There is a new Modern Quilt Guild Challenge... and I really want to create special for it. To do that, I need a plan... which starts with ideas. Hence contemplation. The theme is "find your own voice" I think it's a hard theme only because judging will become personal. Based on that, I really want it to shine with ME... but I'm not all too shiny. This is what makes it a challenge!

I was able to sew with some friends the other day and worked on this block idea:

The first time through, I royally messed up my pattern. Luckily, since there were other quilters around, I got some fantastic tips. The most important one was to make design lines on my pattern so I can split it into sections and more easily piece it together. You'd think I would have known that already... but I've always been the "let's just do it and see what happens" non-planning type. This is how that turned out:

I also learned how to make a really nice pillowcase, and sew a "set-in" circle... as well as how to brown some butter. It's all a learning curve... and I love it! I'm still not sure what my entry for the MQG challenge will be, but it will be new to me ~ so I'll learn even more.

Oh... and I finished my chicken pillow ~ cute huh? If you didn't know... I'm a BIG chicken fan, and I adore my new pillow. I even got to use some of my special yellow chickens that I got from a good friend, so that makes it extra special :)

A Quilt Finish!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 02:26:00 +0000

YAY! I finished this quilt for my new little cousin Brady Glenn.

I used the pattern I made for the monochromatic challenge... and used more contrasting colors to show the pattern a bit better. It took longer than usual to finish this only because I haven't had much time to sew :(

However, I've been seeing pictures from the Sisters Quilt Show and now I'm all inspired to start something fresh and new! I've been turning different patterns in my head trying to decide what I'm going to do next. I do know that I will be using my new Kona Solid "Bone" fabric ~ and that negative space will be my focus. We'll see what happens!

Here is a close up of the screen printed patch I made for the back of the quilt ~ turned out cute!

Screen Print Demo

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:26:00 +0000

Hey there Portland Peeps... I want to invite you to a screen printing demo we (Phantom Chicken) are doing this Wednesday at Rontoms (600 E. Burnside) from 6:30 to 9:00pm. It is being sponsored by AIGA Portland.

It may not have anything to do with quilting other than personalizations, but I know some of you have shown interest in how screenprinting is done... and this would be a great opportunity to learn. Plus if you bring your own Tee you can try it out yourself.

Here is more information on the event ~ maybe I'll see you down there!

New Quilt plus Sewing Room Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Gail) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:51:00 +0000

My last post was a bit of a downer... so I made an effort to make this one much more positive!

To start with, a friend of mine was cleaning out her garage and was giving away a big piece of foam insulation... just the kind I need for a design wall! Since it wouldn't fit up my small stairwell, I had to cut the 8' length to 6' so I ended up with 2 design boards ~ one that's 6'x4' and one that's 2'x4'. Check it out:

We used to have a big shark poster hanging where I put up the design board... that's why there are little scuba men floating under the plant, see:

I used a great tutorial on how to make these boards at Oh Frannson! Very easy to do!! Plus I had enough space on the other side of the room to hang my squid and rooster quilt:

I know it's really messy, but oh well. I work there! Actually I've started another quilt... it's going to be for my new cousin Brady Glenn. I'm using a circle pattern I made earlier this year, and I'm liking how it's turning out. It's bigger than a baby quilt, about 45"x60" but I figure he can grow and use it for a long time. Here's a sneak peek at the top:

and a patch for the back:

YAY! I'm feeling better this week, and I'm getting some good work done, and I'm sooo happy to have a design wall for sewing ~ and a new project to work on!